Reichstag tour

Michael has a friend who was working for the Green Party, so we got an insider tour of the Reichstag building. I have been there before, including to the glass dome at the top, (See older post) but not inside and underground and in other government buildings. So this was pretty cool.

Below: I hadn't really realized exactly how new everything was...it was only finished in 1999. Really interesting history with the fall of the wall in 1989. The building was finally renovated years after the war (on the side of East Berlin), and housed a museum. They didn't know what to do with it in 1989, but in 1990 the Germans decided to move the capitol from Bonn back to Berlin, and to use the Reichstag building.

Lots of glass and steel, shiny govt buildings along the Spree.

below: I was so excited to come across this: preserved graffiti from Russian and American soldiers who invaded/occupied Berlin in 1945. They left some of the original wall exposed so you could see it. (I later heard they only saved the "clean" stuff.) I have seen pictures from 1945 and the walls were just covered. You can see it here.

underground tunnel

looking over the Spree